Follow Us

The latest organised clean-up in Malta has uncovered - unsurprisingly - a whole load of plastic in our water and on our beaches.

Fomm Ir-Riħ was the latest beach to receive the clean-up treatment. The beautiful bay was marred with little bits of plastic alongside bits of wire and loads of bottle caps.

277 bottle caps, to be exact.

"This beach has plastic litter that has been in the sea for a decade or even two," said Camilla Appelgren, one of the organisers. "I'm fed up with going down to this bay and see the damage it causes to the wildlife."

"Can we just realise that we all play a part in this and start reducing? We all click 'sad emoji' on these photos but what action do we take beyond that?" she asked publicly.

The clean-up uncovered a dead turtle among the debris on the beach. While they don't think the turtle died from eating plastic, it was probably harmed by other pollutants.

"Most turtles are hooked by long lines -these can have thousands of hooks on - and thousands of turtles are caught on them, and then just thrown back into the sea. Eventually they get rescued (sometimes many months afterwards) and sometimes they die," a person who works in turtle rescue was quoted as saying.

The organisers of the clean-up called on Maltese people to follow the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The organisers also questioned the government's intent to purchase another incinerator when recycling rates in Malta are so low and, they felt, that so little is done to promote recycling.

"It isn't hard to do, and if we don't get used to it now, at one point we won't have a choice anymore, and it will not be a nice experience," they ended.